Concerned About Jobs

[Gavyn]

WARNING: WALL OF TEXT!

Okay so I decided to come back to the game after looking over the information on upcoming changes. Quite a bit of what I looked into was pretty exciting, and I've begun keeping myself as up-to-date with every interview and other source of information as I can to see what else we can expect in the future.

Some of the things that have been either confirmed or hinted at that I'm really excited for are the buddy system for Chocobos, where we can gear up and fight alongside our Chocobo. The Beast Taming/Summoning classes/jobs to finally add a pet system to the game (Just one of the many disappointments I had when the game first launched).

The 7 jobs that have been confirmed look to be great additions and help make the game feel more like "Final Fantasy". I enjoy new experiences but mainly in the form of stories and gameplay changes, certainly not changes in tradition. Final Fantasy's job system is the reason I even like the series. So I'm excited for the upcoming job system, but the 1 job per class has me worried. I know they'll add more jobs and classes eventually, but in the game's current state, 7 jobs is far too few.

One could argue a game like WoW has only 8 classes but those classes branch of into 3 very unique builds each, for about 24 different ways to play the game. This point is moot, though, since this isn't World of Warcraft, this is Final Fantasy, and as tradition goes there are only a handful of the traditional jobs being added. My main concern is the talk in an interview with Yoshi-P about how the Beast Taming/Summoning class is taking priority over classes like Arcanist and Musketeer being added. He made it seem like we can't really expect to see many classes/jobs in the game even once 2.0 is out. Maybe 9 total in the game if we're lucky.

The only point that helped me feel at ease was the talk of multi-class requirement jobs. That takes away any need of adding more classes to add more jobs, the only problem though is when we'll see them. A big part of the fun of MMORPG's is playing as a class/job with a theme you enjoy. And as tradition goes we're lacking Thief, Dark Knight, Red Mage, Blue Mage, Samurai, Ninja, etc. Blue Mage is one of my favorite jobs in any FF game, when will we see them? Ninjas and Samurai are also popular (but please don't turn Ninjas into tanks again), Thieves and rogue-type classes are also much-desired. Red Mages are almost always present. Will we see these jobs before 2.0? Thankfully Beastmaster/Summoner are in the works, it's a step in the right direction.

If I don't play this game I'll probably play WoW again instead, but I really, really don't want to. When the subscription fees are reintroduced, I'll be paying. I want this game to thrive, I want to play a FINAL FANTASY game online. There have been changes and notes stating things that I like for adding to the FF feel of the game, but the lack of jobs that (for the most part) should already be there is a real buzzkill. I have no intention of ever playing FFXI again to experience these classes. So please, Square, I implore you to try to add these traditional jobs to the game before 2.0 hits!

We don't need new classes to be able to unlock them either, we just want to play the game as our favorite jobs. It helps us plan ahead for which Disciples of the Land and Hand to skill up, or if it'd even be worth doing. Like, say, if Blue Mages supposedly wore cloth as expected, we could level Weaving up while waiting for the job to be released. But if we don't know if it'll even be coming, we get apprehensive and ignore the jobs/classes we don't care too much for and probably move to a more "Full" game. I don't want to see people leaving the game and I certainly don't want to end up leaving because I only enjoy playing one job/class (where other MMO's have so many other options). If it's not much trouble can you give us more hints at upcoming jobs? It'd be nice to at least know we won't be stuck with only 8-9 jobs for 2 years (assuming summoner and beastmaster get released).